Egypt train collision kills at least 37, says ministry

Egyptians search for survivors at the site of a crash where two trains collided near the Khorshid station in Egypt's coastal city of Alexandria, Egypt August 11, 2017. — Reuters picALEXANDRIA, Aug 12 — At least 37 people were killed as two trains collided yesterday outside the Mediterranean city of Alexandria, in one of the deadliest in a string of such accidents in Egypt, the health ministry said.

Footage on the state broadcaster showed one train had partly keeled over in the crash, and medics were seen moving the dead and injured to ambulances.

Transport ministry officials, quoted on state television, said the crash was probably caused by a malfunction in one train that brought it to a halt on the rails.

One train had been heading from Cairo to the northern city of Alexandria and the other from the canal city of Port Said, east of the capital, to Alexandria.

The dead and injured were initially placed on blankets in a field beside the tracks running through farmland on the outskirts of the city.

The health ministry said 75 ambulances had been dispatched to treat casualties and that all the hospitals in Alexandria had been placed on high alert.

The probe, however, did not prevent further accidents. Just months later, a train carrying military conscripts derailed, killing 17 people.

Around a year later, a collision between a train and a bus killed 27 people south of the capital.

They had been returning from a wedding when the train ploughed into their bus and a truck at a railway crossing.

Egyptians have long complained that the government has failed to deal with chronic transport problems, with roads as poorly maintained as railway lines.

In July 2008, at least 44 people died near Marsa Matruh in northwest Egypt when a runaway truck hurtled into bus, truck and several cars waiting at a level crossing, shunting the vehicles into the path of a train.

In August 2006, at least 58 Egyptians were killed and 144 injured in a collision between two trains travelling on the same track.

In the wake of that crash, a court sentenced 14 railway employees to one year in prison for neglect.